Hello All!

Our apologies for not being in touch for a while. Where to start... well we left Melbourne because the grand prix was looming and due to our a-bit-too-laid-back attitude we hadn't arranged accomodation early enough and subsequently were left homeless! So we headed to Brisbane on a mammoth 22hour journey on the greyhound which wasn't the best. The coach was fairly empty though so we could stretch out a bit. I did attempt to sleep on the floor for part of the journey. This was surprisingly a very comfortable hour until I was rudely awoken by the driver yelling at me that it wasn't safe to sleep on the floor etc. Spoil sport! We were awoken and told to get off the coach for breakfast at 6.30am which felt very odd, but we went along with it and Liam even had a full hungry jacks burger meal thing (like burger king at home). Anyway, we arrived in brisbane on Sun 9th March and left on the 12th. We stayed in Palace City Backpackers, we were in a 6 bed dorm and met a very interesting lad who kept us entertained with his constant stories lets just say. One being how he was a recovering alcoholic; when he finished his story he went to the pub!lol. He was lovely, just a troubled soul :-) Our first night in brisbane was spent having a good mooch around, we found the pubs, bars and chinese quarter. We had a chinese which wasn't particularly nice but it was the only place with a cheap specials board. lol It was a Sunday night yet everyone was totally slaughtered and everywhere was very busy! Sunday night seems to be a main night to go out in Austrailia, no wonder we keep hearing people joke about Aussies always going to work drunk! First morning in Brisbane we were awoken by a load of drilling right outside our door at 8am, needless to say it took us an extra day to get over the 22hour sleepless greyhound journey. Brisbane as a whole we thought was a bit like Brimingham but sunny! So we didn't have any intentions of staying there longer than we needed to. But there was a very nice city beach there which although was artificial was very beautiful. The gardens there were stunning aswell so not all like Brum's city centre lol.

Next we headed to Noosa which was only 3 and a half hours away on the greyhound which was a nice change, however it was on a mini bus with seats made of stone and no suspension! It also smelt a bit dodgy but I think that had more to do with one of the lads on the bus. So.... Noosa; very beautiful indeed! We stayed in a lovely little hostel called Noosa Backpackers resort where we had a double room all to ourselves!!!! Woohoo! This is very rare nowadays! Unfortunately we don't have any photos of Noosa or Airlie Beach (where we went next) because our memory card was full and we didn't get around to burning CDs and wiping it. Sorry everyone :-s Anyway, the main reason we went to Noosa was to go to Austrailia Zoo, so on the second day thats what we did. It was great! I got to cuddle a koala and stroke kangaroos, Liam got to wrestle a croc true Steve Irwin style! I have a photo of me cuddling the koala but I havent got it on the site because I need to scan it in. As the koala was given to me it made a little koala yawning noise, stretched out and clung on to me which was so cute. The zoo lady said he must've liked me but went on to say I must make a good tree! Wasn't sure if that was such a compliment lol We also saw a show with snakes, crocs and exotic birds. The snakes were a bit naff as they were just swimming about looking long! But the crocs were impressive as we watched them being fed and it all looked a bit unpredictable! Nobody got eaten though. The birds were flying allaround the arena, swooping past our faces and over our heads really close! The tigers were a highlight as they were being given milk from the carton and they would go up on their hind legs and look all pathetic to get the milk, which was strange for such huge animals! We also saw one dart up a really tall but very narrow tree, it was very impressive. The only other thing I can say about Noosa is how unbearable the heat was, and this got even more so the case the more north we went.

Next we got the beloved greyhound to Airlie beach, gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. We had planned to go to the Reef from here but it was too choppy so no boats were going out as far as the great barrier reef. We considered going sailing to the whitsundays but remembering our bank balances came crashing back to reality. lol. We chose to go to Cairns to go to the reef from there as it is a lot closer to land there. Airlie beach wasn't much of a beach, instead there was a large lagoon style swimming pool where the beach should have been. There were big signs up warning people no to go in the sea as the jellyfish were deadly. There were massive signs showing the different types of jellyfish there are and what to do if any of them were to sting you. Most instruction end with call an ambulance. So we didn't test the water! Everything about Airlie beach was very pricey, even the local convenience store. However they had the worst bus terminal we have seen; it was a very run down wooden bus shelter and thats it. You would have thought they would have gone to a bit more effort in such a wealthy area but hey ho.

Next we headed to Cairns, stayed at Cairns City Backpackers which was a bit out of the way but the walking did us good! We were i a 6 bed dorm to start with, and moved to a 4 bed dorm (because the 6 was all booked up) after a few days. The 4bed dorm even had an ensuite shower so we were rather chuffed! We got a free meal at 'The Woolshed' each night we stayed at this hostel, but unfortunately we got a bit fed up of spag bol by the end of the week. It was a childs portion which you could upgrade to a proper meal for $5/6/7 but we stuck with the freebie anyway. We met some great people in Cairns; Krista and Pete, Jon, Mitch and Dan. Hopefully we will meet up with Mitch when he has made his way down to Sydney in his campervan. Hopefully we will have jobs by then too!!! Whilst in Cairns we ofcourse went out on a day trip to the great barrier reef! Oyster reef to be exact. It was a fantastic day! We had monirng tea on the boat (to wash down the sea sickness tablets), a massive buffet lunch, afternoon tea and cake, AND champagne! Most importantly we got to snorkle and scuba dive which was brilliant!!! We had a great instructor called Richie who took us scuba diving; each instructor takes 4 people down at a tme and guides you around showing you all the best bits. The visability underwater wasn't very good that day so we had to go quite close to everything to get a perfect view. We kept thinking we were going to touch the coral by accident because we were so close to it, it was difficult not to. The poor visability meant that the snorkling wasn't as great as it could have been. It was still really fun though and I may have seen a small shark! Although there was noone around to verify it as I had been swimming along not realising me and Liam had lost each other and I turned to say Oh my God is that a shark and he was gone. He had the camera on him and I was rather pi**ed off that I couldn't take a picture of it. Oh well!! Everyone had to learn some basic underwater-scuba-sign-language so we could communicate underwater. We learnt how to remove your air supply and replace it after a few seconds underwater which was scary to do for the first time as we were so far down if it had gone wrong we would've been stuffed!! After lunch whilst lazing about on the deck we started throwing some bread into the water and all these beautiful fish came right up to the surface. We soon stopped though as another girl had been spotted doing the same and one of the instructors gave her a big telling off as it is bad for the fish. oops. The whole scubadiving experience was amazing I can't wait to do it again!

From Cairns we went to Townsville on our final greyhound journey! Wahey!!!! Only 6 hours this time. We stayed at Globetrotters in Townsville, but we didn't do much here really as our main purpose for coming here was to fly to Sydney in a weeks time (31st March). So we decided to spend most of this week on Magnetic Island which is a stunning and peaceful Island 20 minutes on the ferry from Townsville. Graham who we had met in Cairns told us great things about it so we thought we would check it out. Thanks Graham!! We stayed in a little place called Travellers Hideaway in Picnic Bay. We played golf here which was interesting let's say! Its definitely not my game lol. And Liam..well he was better than me but hit a lot of trees. Which I was later told have koals i them, but it's ok we didn't see anything falling out of the trees so they must have been ok. lol. We rented a buggy which was lots of fun and I am glad we did because it was refreshing to have some shade from time to time; it was so hot and it was only quite early. I read that the Island is in what they call a 'rain shaddow' so it has better weather than most places all year. It's just aswell we weren't taking the golf scoring too seriously because two of my balls were stolen by crows!! We couldn't believe our eyes. After that I had to race the buggy over to where Liams ball landed and stand by it to protect it from the crows!!lol. One day we went on a marathon walk! We caught the bus up to the north of the Island then went on few walk around the various bays. They were truely stunning. We saw Horseshoe Bay, Balding Bay, Radical Bay, Florence Bay and Arthur Bay. Balding Bay was the best, although it was also a nudist Beach. So that was a bit of a shock seeing a naked older couple walking towards us lol Walking in the sea on this beach was perfect there were butterflies all around and the sea was like a hot bath on my feet. You're not meant to go in the sea without a stnger suit or in a designated swimming area with a stinger net, but here the water was so calm clear that you could quite safely go in. Although are walk took us to many beautiful sights it also took us a bit too long to get back to the road and we were running so low on water we were dying of thirst! I caught a glimpse of my sweaty minging face in the bus shelter when we reached the road and well let's just say I am glad no pictures were taken! The following day we went on another walk to Hawkings Point, a much shorter one fortunately! A great view at the end though. It also rained one day while we were on the Island. How unlucky was that! 'Rain shaddow' yeah right!! :-) On the 30th we went back to Townsville and spent one final night there before our fligt the following morning. And 3hours later we were in Sydney again! It was so refreshing to fly again I don't much miss the greyhound!!

So here we are in Sunny Sydney again. We have joined a couple of recruitment agencies and are waiting for them to contact us. We are looking forward to getting stuck into work as we have too much time on our hands but not enough money to take advantage of it. We went to Darling harbour the other day which we hadn't seen last time we were here so that was nice. And tomorrow 'The Redbull Flugtag' is on (The first Austailian one ever I think). It's an event where manpowered aeroplanes and the like attempt to fly before plummetting into the water! We are going to take a picnic, should be a laugh! Hope all is well at home and you haven't all gone cross eyed reading this, I know I have writing it. lol

lots of love xxxxxxxxxxxx